


Heartless

by eobarry



Category: The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Brooding, Character Study, M/M, One-Sided Attraction, Pining, Unrequited Love, au where eo didn't die at the end of season 1, edited and reuploaded - original written in 2017
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-06
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2020-02-27 00:12:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18727714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eobarry/pseuds/eobarry
Summary: Near the end of season 1, the timeline diverges. Eobard decides to try and fix it and convinces team Flash to let him. After being locked in the pipeline for months, he's finally released to face tension between himself and the rest of the team.He's released, and he has to face Barry Allen, his questions, the implications of the sudden timeline divergence.And most of all, he has to face himself.





	Heartless

**Author's Note:**

> A canon-divergence that aligns more with how I think the time travel should have been dealt with. Really just a shameless reason for me to write Eo-centric angst and pining.
> 
> If you think you've seen this before, that's because I originally wrote it at least 2 years ago, and I'm reuploading to this account in hopes that I'll actually write more stuff for this au.

He knew that this Barry Allen was different. He knew it earlier than he cared to admit, knew that the way he talked, the way he carried himself, was so different from the man he met in Barry’s future, in his own past. He didn’t  _want_  to believe it. He didn’t want to believe that the Barry Allen he trained was somehow different from the man that he’d spent years,  _decades_  fighting, constantly caught in a war across time and space, because he  _couldn’t_  be. Because Eobard couldn’t let himself be tricked again, couldn’t let himself feel hope, or else everything he worked to so carefully craft would fall down, just like it always seemed to. Because he could never win.

The Flash used to be his hero. The one thing that kept him going, the one person, or icon, or idea that motivated and guided him. Even without the Flash there in person, Eobard always looked up to him, admired him, considered him a mentor and a rival and the most important person in his life.

Then he met him, the Flash, and all that came tumbling down. One wrong word from the Flash crushed Eobard and he snapped, that rejection wracking every cell of his body and he was running, he had his hand on the Flash’s throat and he was just so angry, he saw red and he wasn’t sure if it was his lightning or the pure rage thrumming through his veins. And even though the first time, the first time he fought the Flash he didn’t mean it, he couldn’t take it back. He tried,  _god_  he tried to apologize, to explain, but the Flash didn’t understand him, couldn’t comprehend that someone who reacted the way Eobard did could be anything other than evil.

So that’s what he became. Evil, wretched, villainous and full of hatred. Determined to destroy the Flash by any means necessary. And that became his purpose.

He kept making mistakes. That happens when you mess with time, especially as much as the Flash and the his Reverse do, running through time, running so fast that they rip fissures into space and pop out wherever their Speed Force takes them. His first mistake was meeting the Flash, and his second was trying to kill him as a child. That mistake cost him just about everything – his speed, his original timeline, his skin even.

Eobard may be many things, but self-pitying? A quitter? Those things he was not. No, he could fix any problem he got himself into. He would create the Flash, and return to his own time where there was no Flash, no Reverse Flash, no  _anything_  and maybe he could be someone normal again, maybe he could escape this because good god he was  _tired_ , and as much as he hated Barry Allen, the longer he stayed in the 21st century, the clearer it became that he wasn’t going to regain his speed.  He wouldn’t be able to find anything even close to happiness while Barry Allen lived, and now that his connection to the Speed Force was lost, the only way he could live in a world without Barry Allen is if he traveled to a time where the other was long dead. His own time.

If Eobard was anything, it was practical.

He waited, and he watched, and he planned and carefully constructed the perfect environment to train Barry Allen, just like the original Wells would have. He couldn’t help but feel a strange twist of emotions he felt when he first saw him lying in that coma. There was a sense of victory, oh yes, a swirl of superiority and power that was intoxicating, but there was also something, something about finally seeing his enemy so young, so clueless, like a flightless baby bird, that tugged at things he tried to lock up a long, long time ago.

It was equal parts frustrating and exhilarating training him. He couldn’t act like he knew too much, or teach Barry things that he couldn’t yet explain. He had to feign ignorance until Barry found some things out himself, which seriously tried his patience and also made him wonder what made him see this bumbling fool as a mentor figure when he was young. Half of the time it was really Eobard and his encouragement, his knowledge, his ultimatum that Barry had to be kept alive that won the battles. Barry was so weak, so young, and so utterly dependent on him. Eobard could do something as simple as refuse to coach Barry while he’s in battle and poof, just like that, the Flash would be no more.

But even then, Eobard could see that there was something different about this Barry. The timeline, as he got older, the more he interacted with Eobard, the more metas he took on, was increasingly unstable. It was a tense balancing act for Eobard, trying to keep the timeline on track, when the simplest thing he did could set it off course, and he didn’t know why. Why was it so fickle? If killing Nora Allen was going to derail it, shouldn’t it have already happened?

When it finally derailed for good, broken beyond repair and leaving Eobard stuck in another alternate timeline of his own creation, it was when he revealed his true self to Barry. He  _had_  to, he was getting too attached, actually starting to enjoy the company of Cisco and Caitlin and Barry, god,  _Barry,_  the man he was supposed to hate with his entire being - but the training and the way Barry looked at him brought back that old doubt, the churn in his gut, the feelings he spent decades pressing to the back of his mind because they  _didn’t make sense_.

They kept him in the pipeline – there was no reason for him to suggest Barry go back and prevent him from killing Nora Allen, because if Barry killed that version of Eobard, the only thing that was keeping Eobard anchored in this timeline, who knew what would happen to him? He pleaded, he begged for the three people he’d hurt the most to keep him there, in the pipeline, until they could safely let him out and then he could try, probably fruitlessly, to piece the fucking timeline back together so he could just _go home._

The looks of hatred they gave him, the festering rage that he thought would ignite that old inferno in his heart, just made him feel horrible and defeated. It didn’t motivate him anymore, the glares and the screaming and the way that Barry teared up and his voice cracked while banging on the glass of his cell in the pipeline, crying  _why, why?_  The only thing it did was make him oh so tired, it made him feel for the first time in his life that he’d actually lost, like he’d done something that he couldn’t fix, that he was completely and utterly  _fucked_.

It took months for them to finally let him loose, power-dampening cuffs locked tight around his wrists, taking away what little speed he had left, and even though he feels defeated, he  _can’t_  be. He has to still try, so he researches and he trains, and he still helps the rest of the team at STAR Labs, even if they don’t ask for it, because he still has to keep Barry alive if he ever managed to set the timeline right.

It takes time, but Barry is the first of them to turn around. The first one to try to act civil towards him. It makes him angry, it stokes the old fire in him, but at the same time it’s so surprising. Because the Flash  _he_  knew, the Flash he used to fight, would have never done that - would have never even _attempted_  to be polite towards him.

And that’s how he knows. This Barry Allen, the one he trained, this Barry Allen was different. This Barry Allen, _his_  Barry, was good, and he was understanding, and he fought crime because he truly cared about humanity, not about fame or power.  _This_  Barry Allen was the one he grew up idolizing.

That doesn’t do anything to help his confusion. He’s hated Barry Allen for so long, and he knows that even under that civility Barry hates him too, so what’s the point in changing? What’s the point in being anything other than what the Flash, that other Flash, molded him to be?

The answer comes one day when he’s working in the lab. It’s one far from the Cortex, far from the rest of the team so that they don’t have to look at him. It’s best for everyone. That is, until he hears familiar footsteps, and he didn’t know he could tell Barry apart just from the sound of his walk, but apparently he can.

“Why do you hate me?” he asks. There’s an undertone of hardness, more frustration and authority than anger, and other than that, the question is spoken with an even tone. Eobard turns in his seat, acting unfazed, even though the mere presence of Barry in his room is throwing him off. He crosses his arms over his chest, pen still in hand as he regards the speedster, head held high as if to hide his inner turmoil at the question.

Why did he hate the Flash? The question was so loaded, so complicated. It was the question that had been haunting Eobard ever since the timeline had stayed stuck. Who was the Flash now? – he didn’t think this Barry was the Flash he’d originally met. Did he hate Barry then, if he hated that other Flash? And if he did hate Barry, then why? Because he had the same face? Because there was the possibility he could grow to be the speedster that wrecked Eobard’s dreams?

“I don’t hate you, Barry, I hate the Flash. The man you were supposed to grow into,” he says, because he wants to avoid the question.

“You said that before, but then it was ‘the man you will become’,” Barry replies, and his gaze is a constant pressure on Eobard. He frowns, because he’s uncomfortable, and rolls his eyes, turning back to his work.

“If you’re going to be pedantic,  _Mr. Allen_ ,” he bites with particular venom, “I suggest you get back to the Cortex instead of bothering me.”

“I’m not being pedantic!” Barry’s anger is boiling over. He’s not as adept as Eobard as hiding it. Thawne permits himself a smirk at the tone of Barry’s voice, the fact that the other is so predictable.

A loud huff - Barry composing himself, Eobard assumes, as he pretends to scribble equations on the page in front of him.

“You know I’m not,” Barry says, and Eobard swallows involuntarily. “There’s a difference, Doct- Eo- Thawne. There’s a big difference. Am I him? Am I really him? And what did he do to you – look at me!” Barry grabs the corner of his chair and spins him at super-speed, and Eobard’s lucky that his own powers of perception at super-speed are still intact, or else he might have whiplash.

Barry boxes him in, his hands gripping the back of Eobard’s chair, careful to only touch the time-traveler when necessary. His eyes, green and piercing, are focused on Eobard and Eobard alone, his gaze frustrated and searching.

Eobard doesn’t like this, he doesn’t like it at all because he has to be in control, he  _needs_  it, but he presses against the feeling of anxiety crawling in his veins and takes a breath, trying to steady himself in this position of submission the best he can, before he lets his anger get the better of him and he pops Barry in the nose out of sheer discomfort alone.

“I don’t  _know_ ,” he spits, trying to spill as much sarcasm and dismissal into his voice as he can muster. He can tell just by Barry’s eyes that it angers him, and it’s not hatred, just anger, and it makes Eobard’s body trill with excitement. “That’s the whole reason I’m here, you’re alive, and I’m in these goddamn cuffs.” He raises his hands to display them.

It’s a lie, of course. He knows that this Barry isn’t the one he met that day. This Barry is lightyears away by now.

“You have a theory,” Barry presses, ignoring him. Barry’s smart, he knows that Eobard likes to lie, knows that it’s hard to tell. When Barry loses trust for someone, it’s as if he gains another 20 points to his IQ. “I know you do. You wouldn’t hesitate if you didn’t.”

It’s the intelligence that makes Eobard falter, combined with the fact that yes, this isn’t  _that_  Barry. This is  _his_  Barry, the one he wanted to meet in the first place. He doesn’t have hope, but he does… respect this man.  _This_ Barry.

“I have a theory,” he concedes, shifting in his seat, under Barry’s gaze, to cross his arms again. “The headline in 2024 proves that you’re not him, at least the you right now isn’t.” Eobard turn his chair, disregarding Barry’s hands on it, and shuffles through his work, handing the other some calculations.

“The timeline’s fluctuated multiple times while I’ve been here, but I’ve always been able to set it back on track. This time, I’m not too sure.”

Barry frowns at the papers, his brows scrunched together, looking adorable in only a way he can manage – not the sort of cute that one would associate with ignorance or stupidity, but one that was only brought out when Barry was learning, trying to understand.

“And you want him back? That Flash?” Barry eventually asks, finally looking up from the papers. Eobard’s been staring, but he makes no action to try and hide it. He knows Barry doesn’t notice things like that. “Why?”

“I don’t  _want_  him back, Barry,” Eobard growls, less at Barry at more at himself, at the memory of that Flash. “I  _need_  him back, to return to my own timeline. At this point-” Eobard’s getting more irate, as he waves his hands, gesturing to his body, the cuffs, his lack of connection to the Speed Force, “-it’s the only way I’ll ever be rid of that bastard.”

Eobard’s so caught up in his memories, so caught up in rage against his enemy and the current state of his body and speed, that he’s off-guard when Barry asks him:

“What could he have possibly done to make you hate him so much?”

_He broke my heart._

The sheer speed of that thought, the first one that popped into Eobard’s head, has his eyes widen and his fingers almost imperceptibly grip the armrest of his chair. Because god,  _god_  was that true,  _that_  Flash ripped his heart out and then stepped on it, that Barry Allen knew nothing of adaptation and compassion and understanding his fellow meta, that Flash took his dreams and crushed them under his heel and in his youth he wanted nothing more than to take the most important thing to the Flash and crush it, and make him feel the same sharp, agonizing pain that Eobard felt when he realized his idol didn’t hate him, because no, that would be too kind, but _ignored_  him, didn’t give a _shit_  about him, thought he was nothing more than a pest and an idiot and the mere thought makes his blood boil all over again.

“He did the same thing I did to you,” Eobard says, low but smooth. He can’t look Barry in the eye as he says this, because now he can’t get his emotions under control and he feels like he’s 26 again, like he can’t hold them back.

He doesn’t see Barry’s reaction, as he’s gripping the chair white-knuckled now, trying to calm down, but he hears the intake of breath, and the shift in the room as Barry takes a step back.

“He was my hero,” Eobard starts, and he hadn’t meant to say it out loud but now that he’s begun he can’t seem to stop himself. “He was my –“  _my everything_ “-my motivation. My drive. I gave myself these powers so I could travel back to meet him, and when I did, he shut me down. He was nothing like the man I thought he was. He was selfish and power-hungry and all-mighty and I was as young as you are now, and I couldn’t control myself. I was so angry, I tried to kill him. I couldn’t, of course. I couldn’t even apologize for it, admit it was a mistake,” Eobard laughs, and it’s dry and colorless and painful. “He didn’t believe I could change, even though I told him I wanted to. So I didn’t.”

Eobard can’t handle Barry’s gaze, so he clears his throat and turns back to his notes, shuffles them into neat stacks and mostly just avoids any contact. He already feels regret coloring his mind, like venom seeping in. Barry did this to him, made him feel like he could be a little vulnerable, a little hopeful, even though he really shouldn’t, because _lord_  is Barry smart and that man could break his heart all over again with even a sliver of his weakness.

“What, do you expect me to pity you because of it? Forgive you? You  _killed_  my  _mom!”_

And there it is, the knife in his back. It’s actually comforting how precisely Eobard was able to predict it. He slides easily into his mask of composure, and laughs, cold and sarcastic.

“Of course not,” he snaps, still not facing Barry. “I’m a horrible, disgusting human being and your forgiveness, your  _pity –_ “ he spits the word out as if it physically pains him to do so,”-can’t change that. And the sooner we all accept that, the sooner we can all get on with our lives.” He writes out a formula he forgot to add to his original notes, and it adds nonchalance to his performance.

That nonchalance is broken, however, by Barry spinning his chair around again. Eobard closes his eyes, partially to stifle an eye roll, and also because he needs to brace himself before he looks at Barry.

When he finally does see Barry, the other is searching Eobard’s face, his brow furrowed, biting his lip in concentration, in confusion. Eobard was expecting anger, expecting more snark, more biting remarks and questions, not… this.

“Do you regret it?”

Eobard plays dumb. “Regret what?”

“You know what. Do you regret killing her?”

Barry looks almost frantic, not boiling with rage or hatred, not sad or lost, just searching, like the scientist he is.

And at least this question is easy for Eobard.

“No.”

Barry shrinks back in shock, in disgust.

“How can you be so _heartless_?”

Barry looks like he might actually cry now, his mouth curling the way it only does when his eyes begin to water, and Eobard’s almost upset that he’s made Barry mournful again.

Eobard rises from the chair and takes a step towards Barry, who takes another step back.

“I am many things, Barry Allen, but heartless is not one of them,” he likes being able to see eye-to-eye with Barry, intimidate him at the same height, because right now Barry looks equal parts enraged and hysterical as he grabs onto the front of Eobard’s black shirt and grips it so tight his knuckles turn white.  He makes a sound that’s close to a growl, and he looks as if he might scream something in Eobard’s face, and then his grip relaxes on Eobard’s shirt, and he looks down, taking a breath to steady himself.

“Have you ever felt anything other than hate, for anyone, in your entire life?” Barry asks, and he’s still looking down, and Eobard thinks he might be crying. But the question rings true in his ears.

Has he ever felt anything other than hate?

He has,  _oh he has_. He’s felt hope and he’s had puppy love crushes in high school, and even love in college. He’s felt crippling sadness and anger every time someone’s left him, he’s felt hope every time someone new seemed to like him. He’s loved and he’s befriended and he’s hoped and he’s lost.

But over the years, his emotions did die, shrivel up with each failed relationship, each friend that was only talking to him because of his brain or his bank. He built up a wall to keep out the hope and the longing and the sadness.

But even with that wall, and even when he thought he felt nothing for anyone, and never would ever again, there was _him_. There was his Barry Allen, with a smile that could melt him and a gaze full of so much admiration he might burst from it, with determination and a sense of right that made Eobard want to hope again, made him want to long for a world where good prevailed. His Barry Allen is headstrong and passionate and intelligent and brave and he _loves_  him, he’s loved him for decades and he doubts he’ll ever stop loving him.

“Yes,” he whispers, and it’s soft and gentle, something no one would ever expect to come out of Eobard Thawne’s mouth, and he knows he’s staring at Barry again, when he finally lifts his head and tries to blink the tears from his eyes, that beautiful confused look present once more.

He wants to hold him, so badly, but he knows he can’t, he knows that Eobard Thawne’s life is full of torture.  Where every good thing he ever manages to make or find ends up being snatched out from under him, because he makes horrible decisions. He’s a disgusting person and he deserves it, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting so desperately to change, wanting a second chance if maybe, just maybe, his Barry could love him back.

Barry stares at him, searching again, and Eobard has to try so hard not to look away, because now he’s sure that instead of seeing into Barry’s soul it’s the other way around, and for once it seems like his façade is broken and Barry can see right through Eobard.

Eobard steels himself. He tries to lock away his vulnerability, brace for the blow once more.

It doesn’t come. Instead, the silence is broken by Caitlin’s voice, calling for Barry. He watches as Barry breaks eye contact with him, the abrupt bob of his adam’s apple in his throat, the delicate fingers that wipe the wetness from his eyes.

“I-I gotta go,” Barry says, and it sounds suspiciously like the tone he used with Dr. Wells, the tone he used before all of this. It make Eobard’s heart hurt.

“Of course,” he replies, returning to his chair and his work, and if Barry notices the chink in his acting, the miniscule shaking of his hands as he picks up his pen, the nervous tick where he presses his thumb to his bottom lip, he doesn’t mention it, and then Barry’s gone, leaving Eobard to his thoughts and his work.


End file.
